Main menu

Category Archives: Monday Challenge

Post navigation

It’s the start of a new week and a new challenge to inspire you! First, let me share with you an entry from a new participant, Francesca. She made a beautiful, glittery embossed birthday card for a friend.

Click the image, or her name above to see the full card on her blog. Thanks for participating, Francesca! I look forward to seeing more of your work!

This week’s challenge is to use WOOD VENEERS on your project. Again, this can be a layout, card, mixed media, or any such project. Just be creative, and use some wood veneers!

I have to admit….I have a bit of a problem with wood veneers. I have an addiction problem. 😉 I love these little things! They add a great touch to your page without tons of depth, and there are so many styles and designs to choose from! I’m sure I have more veneers than I can use, but I’m trying!

The following layout was made with several different wood veneers, and was inspired by sketch #183 over at Nuts About Sketches.

It’s hard for me to believe this little guy is now 11 and almost as tall as I am! I used wood veneers from Freckled Fawn, Studio Calico, and Maya Road on this layout. I will often ink or spray or even heat emboss the wood elements, but for this layout, I left them the natural wood color. I really like how the embellishment clusters turned out!

An enamel dot fits perfectly into the lens area of the camera! Tiny stars and more enamel dots join with ink splatter in teal and silver to finish this cluster.

More ink splatter, and enamel dots are in each cluster. This cluster has a tiny wooden heart by Freckled Fawn that fits perfectly into a Maya Road polaroid style frame. Some words and a little boy figure completed this grouping.

Sam has made a card for this challenge! Go visit her blog to see how versatile these embellishments can be!

Here’s how the challenge works: Create a NEW project with WOOD VENEERS and link your blog post below. Take some time out of your week and be crafty! I can’t wait to see what you make!

(I am in the process of moving my blog to a new server to allow the thumbnails to be listed at the bottom of the post. Please click through to go to the linky page. Thank you for your patience as we make this change. I hope it will be completed before next week’s challenge!)

Challenge Rules:
*If it’s a color challenge, be sure to feature the colors in the challenge, additional colors may be added as accents.
*Limit of 3 projects linked per challenge. Each submission must have a unique link. Do not upload multiple submissions with the same link.
*Only link new projects.
*Please provide a link back to the challenge on your blog post.
*We reserve the right to remove any posting that does not meet this criteria.

Share this:

Like this:

It’s the start of the second week, now, and I hope that last week’s posts inspired you to make some craftiness of your own!

We only had one link up last week, but I know this is a new challenge series. I hope that more people are able to join in this week! Before I share the new challenge, let’s see the submission we had for the last link up.

This is Monica’s card. I adore those teal butterflies! They give just the right pop of color and I just love them! Thanks for joining in, Monica! Monica has a new blog started, and I hope we’ll see more of her beautiful creations again soon!

Ok, I know you’re wanting to know this week’s challenge……and it’s EMBOSSING! I think embossing is so cool! It’s so easy to do, but has a huge wow factor! To enter this week, you need to make a card, layout, or any project that has embossing on it. (mixed media would be awesome with some embossing!) It can be either wet embossing, dry embossing, or both!

Here’s an easy card that has both types of embossing on it:

I dry embossed the bottom portion of the card by selectively using an embossing folder in my big shot. I figured out where I wanted the silver glitter tape, then tried to emboss a phrase above that. I forgot to use a powder tool to eliminate the static, and ended up with a less than desirable result. boo! I then cut off the top portion, and spliced on a new piece of cardstock to make it the original size I started with. The glitter tape covers the seam. (the photo shows the seam, but it must have caught the light just right – it’s not noticeable in person.)

I then covered a piece of raw chipboard with embossing ink and used white embossing powder to cover it. This gave me a shiny white element that was perfect for adding my greeting. I added a few silver stars that matched the greeting, and mounted it all onto the card base. The above photo shows all the dimension in the dry embossing, too!

Of course, Sam is joining me again this week on the challenge! She’s awesome! 😉 Go visit her blog to see her creation!

Here’s how the challenge works: Create a NEW project with EMBOSSING and link your blog post below. Take some time out of your week and be crafty! I can’t wait to see what you make!

(I will be making some changes to the blog soon to allow the thumbnails to be listed at the bottom of the post. Please click through to go to the linky page.)

Challenge Rules:
*If it’s a color challenge, be sure to feature the colors in the challenge, additional colors may be added as accents.
*Limit of 3 projects linked per challenge. Each submission must have a unique link. Do not upload multiple submissions with the same link.
*Only link new projects.
*Please provide a link back to the challenge on your blog post.
*We reserve the right to remove any posting that does not meet this criteria.

Share this:

Like this:

I know I teased about lots of new things coming to the blog this year. The first thing will be a weekly challenge that you can link your blog with a thumbnail. You already know that you can expect new content every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Be sure to come back on Wednesday to see what I’ll be doing!

Here’s how the challenges will work: Each Monday, at 8am, I’ll post a new challenge. You have one week to make something – that’s the theme – MAKE SOMETHING – take time to be creative each week! You can link your projects below. You’ll have until Sunday at midnight to submit your link. Then on Monday, I’ll pick my favorite project and feature it on my blog and issue a new challenge.

Our first challenge is…make a WINDOW CARD!

Have a design on the inside that is visible when the card is closed.

Here are two examples of cards I’ve made using this technique.

This first card, I used a circle cutter to cut the front panel and the colored cardstock. I used some American Crafts die-cuts from an Amy Tangerine line. This made the card come together super fast! Both the die-cuts are on pop dots for some depth. Some quick pen lines similar to the design of the die-cuts and some tone on tone sequin action completed the card. I really like the sequins on this one! They give the perfect amount of shine and interest without overpowering and taking the attention from the die-cuts.

When the card is opened, you still see the greeting and have plenty of room to jot a short note.

The next card I want to share with you is too stinkin’ cute! I really love how it turned out!

This one is a square card and I used a circle punch to get the circles in all the layers. The card is made from scraps that were destined for the garbage, but I loved the colors and patterns, so I put them to use to make this card. I think it would be a great birthday card for anyone!

As you open the card, you see a flash of the inside scalloped frame around the stamped bird.

And here is the inside. I have to admit, that little birdie gave me a couple of fits. The first stamping didn’t take dark enough, so I used a pen to trace it but I didn’t like how it was looking. So, then I stamped it onto another piece and cut around it and used the scalloped frame to hide the patchwork. (the inside frame was not in my original design idea) I started coloring the bird using my Faber-Castell Big Brush Pens and a paintbrush and water to use like a watercolor. I was loving how the bird was turning out!! Then I painted the beak. And it went wrong…My hand shook JUST as I touched the brush down and my adorable birdie now had an orange blob for a nose. DRAT! Well, I had patched it once…..now what? I stamped the bird once again onto another piece of paper and painted the beak FIRST, then painted the turquoise, and fussy cut him out to put him in the card. WHEW! I love the final result!!

My friend, Sam Pirkle, is joining me on the challenges to give you even MORE inspiration! You can find her blog HERE. She has all the details posted over there on how she made this awesome card!

Now, how can you get in on this challenge? Make a window card and link it below. Make sure you have an element on the inside that is visible when the card is closed. Next Monday, I’ll pick a favorite and highlight it on my blog when I issue the new challenge. It’s that easy! Now, go make something! Get creative this week!

Challenge Rules:
*If it’s a color challenge, make sure you feature the colors in the challenge, additional colors may be added as accents.
*Limit of 3 projects linked per challenge. Each submission must have a unique link. Do not upload multiple submissions with the same link.
*Only link new projects.
*Please provide a link back to the challenge on your blog post.
*We reserve the right to remove any posting that does not meet this criteria.